What is the net worth of the Duffer Brothers?
Matt and Ross Duffer are collectively and professionally known as The Duffer Brothers and have a combined net worth of $30 million. The North Carolina natives are most famous for creating the Netflix sensation Stranger Things—but they have been writing, directing, editing, producing, and acting for their entire adult lives.
In fact, the Duffer Brothers created their first feature-length film when they were in the third grade!
Here’s what else the dynamic duo have been up to.
The Origin Story
Matt and Ross Duffer were born on 15th February 1984 in Durham, North Carolina.
The pair grew up in Durham, attending Duke School from pre-school to 8th grade. When the pair were in the third grade, their parents bought them a Hi8 video camera to share.
Not content to just follow their friends around filming usual kids’ hijinks, the pair used their camera to create their first film—a full-length adaptation of the card game Magic: The Gathering.
From the project-based school, they moved to Charles E. Jordan high school. Here, the twins developed an interest in the horror genre and earned a reputation for their quality amateur horror films.
After graduating from Charles E. Jordan, Ross and Matt headed to Orange, California, and enrolled at Chapman University.
They went to Dodge College of Film and Arts, where they co-wrote and directed some short films. One of those short films, titled We All Fall Down, would go on to win a 2005 Deep Ellum Film Festival award for Best Short.
In 2007, their final year at Chapman, the pair met with film uber-producer Mace Neufeld.
Neufeld, who produced The Hunt for Red October, supported the pair in the creation of their senior thesis project—Eater. Eater was selected as one of the five finalists to represent their university at the First Cut screening.
Matt’s love life remained pretty under the radar leading up to the launch of Stranger Things.
Ross married Leigh Janiak in 2015, with the pair tying the knot in Palm Springs, California, after dating for 9 years.
The couple met in Los Angeles, where Leigh was working as an assistant and Ross was working as an intern.
Breaking Into Showbiz
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Following their graduation from Chapman, the Duffer Brothers wrote their first commercial feature-length film script.
The script was picked up by Warner Bros., and the Duffer boys were brought in to direct it in 2012. The post-apocalyptic horror film, Hidden, was released in 2015.
Famed director, M. Night Shyamalan, read the Hidden screenplay and was so intrigued with the twins’ work that he had Donald De Line bring the pair in to write for the Fox network’s Wayward Pines series.
Despite their early successes, Warner Bros. turned down the brothers’ request to direct Stephen King’s It, as they weren’t established enough.
Stranger Things
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Rejection is a part of life in show business—and nobody knows this better than the Duffer Brothers.
The creative minds who have become a household name after creating one of the most hyped shows on television once faced a mountain of rejections over their sci-fi show idea.
Stranger Things—which was originally titled Montauk—was passed over by 15 to 20 networks when the brothers were shopping it around Hollywood.
The biggest complaints?
The show needed to be more kid-friendly, or it needed to focus more on one of the adult characters as opposed to a group of kids. Finally, it needed someone other than two virtually unknown brothers to direct it.
All of these things were a deal-breaker for the brothers, so they persevered until they finally found the show a home on Netflix.
The show has since gone on to receive ten Emmy Award nominations, A Screen Actors Guild win for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a drama, multiple individual wins and nominations for some of its leads, and four Golden Globe nominations.
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The Not-So-Glamorous-Hollywood Life
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The Duffer brothers may be a big deal in media circles now, but it appears they still live the same lifestyle they’ve always enjoyed.
The pair don’t really drink, and they don’t enjoy the chaos of the LA social scene. Instead, the pair prefer to stay in, throwing around story ideas and spending time with family and friends.
Despite their aversion to the spotlight, the pair have come under fire in several parts of their professional lives.
On-set staffer, Peyton Brown, claimed the brothers were verbally abusive to some female staffers.
Matt and Ross were investigated, with Netflix releasing a statement that there were no significant issues. The brothers apologized publically for any discomfort they had caused on-set.
Another director then sued the brothers for plagiarizing what he claimed was an idea influenced by his own short film. The director later backtracked, dropping the charges and claiming that he had proof the brothers had come up with the idea on their own.
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Net Worth
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So, how much are the Duffer Brothers worth?
They made most of their wealth from creating the TV series ”Stranger Things.”
In 2022, they launched their new production company, called – “Upside Down Pictures.”
In 2019, Ross bought a house in the Los Feliz neighborhood of LA for $5.4 million. In October 2019, Matt purchased a mansion in the same area for $6.1 million.
Therefore, the Duffer brothers have an estimated net worth of $30 million.
Want to know what the Duffer brothers get up to when they’re not creating hit TV shows? Follow them on Instagram.
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I am Bulgarea Candin Stefan, and I founded FamousPeopleToday.com in 2018. I’m using my bachelor’s degree in economics and 9 years of experience in blogging to guide millions of people through the incredibly complex world of celebrity net worths.